A federal judge on Monday dismissed a lawsuit brought by a former aide of Denver Mayor Michael Hancock, who claimed a breach of employment contract when he was fired a year ago and also claimed he was maligned.

Wayne McDonald was Hancock’s friend and served as a project’s manager and adviser in the mayor’s office, earning $85,000 a year. McDonald was terminated on May 18, 2012, after a female Denver police officer accused him of sexual harassment. McDonald denied he sexually harassed the police officer.

In his suit, McDonald claimed he had been given no hearing or other opportunity to address the accusations. He named the police officer, Hancock and the mayor’s press secretary Amber Miller as defendants.

U.S. District Court Judge John Kane said in an order that McDonald’s suit “is cluttered with erroneous and superfluous concepts and buzzwords that confuse the issues and render meaningful analysis difficult.”
McDonald, in the suit, says that Hancock promised him a city job if McDonald agreed to resign from his private sector corporate executive job. He also alleges that Hancock promised that he would employ him for the duration of his term as mayor. The judge said the allegations fail to show that a binding contract had been breached.

Denver City Attorney Doug Friednash has said that McDonald’s claim had no merit. McDonald “was an employee at will, and the city’s actions were reasonable and appropriate under the circumstances,” Friednash said earlier. The judge agreed.

“McDonald’s allegations fail, as a matter of law, to give rise to a binding contract of employment that could have been breached by the mayor’s actions in firing him at will,” Kane wrote in his order.

Kane had already thrown out McDonald’s claim against the police officer, who isn’t being named by The Denver Post because she is an alleged victim of sexual harassment.

In that allegation, McDonald said the officer’s allegations defamed him. Kane said McDonald’s “claims are rife with problems,” adding that McDonald failed to provide an actual, specific statement attributed to the officer.

McDonald’s suit had sought as much as $362,000, including the $262,084 in wages that he would have earned in his position and $100,000 in compensation for emotional distress.

Anne Sulton, McDonald’s attorney, said she has already filed a notice to appeal.

“We look forward to presenting this case to the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. Some of the legal issues present in this case are unique and intellectually fascinating,” she said in a statement.

McDonald has said he has had trouble finding permanent work because of the allegations lodged against him. He also filed an ethics complaint with Denver’s Ethics Board, which did not take up the case.

Joey Bunch has been a reporter for 28 years, including the last 12 at The Denver Post. For various newspapers he has covered the environment, water issues, politics, civil rights, sports and the casino industry.